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Issue 5: September 2006.
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Home > Issue 5: September 2006 > Non-Fiction

At two in the morning in early June, a bird fell out of the tree across the street. Pumpkin was on the porch having a cigar. He saw the whole thing.

The bird fell, bounced off the hood of a red station wagon, and flopped, squawking, into the street. A stray cat happened to be wandering past; it approached the black bundle, now quiet, sniffed it, and walked away.

The bird gave no sign of life. It lay in the street, unmoving. Pumpkin smoked.

"What was that racket?" I asked a few minutes later.

"See that black thing?"

"What is it?"

He told me the story. "It'll probably be dead by morning."

"He's still alive?"

"I guess so."

"You can't leave him there."

"What do you expect me to do?"

"Well, move him out of the street at least, so he doesn't get hit by a car," I say. "He's got enough problems."

Pumpkin snorts.

"If you don't then I have to," I say, not really wanting to be bothered but unable to ignore things as they were. I give him a few minutes to find his guilt, but he's flopped on the bed with clear confidence in Mother Nature.

I stalk outside in my t-shirt nightie with a box and approach the black puddle of shadow in the street.

It's a large bird, a black bird, maybe a crow. I hunker down, speaking softly. He seems unafraid and doesn't try to move. I wonder if he's hurt. He watches me intently; his eyes are startling blue.

“Come here, honey,” I say, holding out my box. The bird, of course, does nothing. “Come here, birdie. Come on, birdie birdie birdie.” He blinks. I open the box flaps and kind of try to scoop him up. He fidgets a little as I poke him in the knees with the edge of the cardboard. Finally I get it under him and lift him in. He comes compliantly.

I carry him and his box to the lawn of the house where his tree grows, and not knowing what else to do, set him down, box and all, on the grass. I peer in. He peers out. I pull the flaps down so he's got a little privacy but could still get out if he wanted to, and go back into the house. I sit at the table, watching the box through my front window, smoking. I go back out with a piece of wheat bread, which I crumble into the box. I smoke some more then take him a tuna can with water in it. Satisfied, I go to bed.

In the morning, the box is still there. I see it when I sit down with my coffee and hope it's empty. Soon a ruckus starts outside, a ruckus of strange acoustics. I run to the door to watch. It's loud and sort of creepy, but there's nothing to see. The box doesn't lift off the ground, feathers don't fly, there is no cat or visible provocation. In a minute, all is silent. I go out and approach the box slowly.

He's still in there. The street has come to life and there are kids on bikes and old people with canes out for walks, and the birdie has spilled his water. I lift him again, box and all, and carry him into our backyard, where I set him under our tree in the grass, then I come in and call my vet, who gives me a number for the DNR. Feeling silly, I call and explain myself.

"Is it a baby?" the DNR lady wants to know, first thing.

"No, I think it's an adult." He's big, seven or eight inches long.

"Really?" she's incredulous. "Are you sure?"

Now I'm not. I go back outside. The heavens come apart in a flurry of caws and black blurs and beating wings. The little guy has come out onto the flap of his box and is just standing there looking at my car, which is parked in the driveway in front of him. Two shrieking crows land above him in the tree, and now I have a view of all of them, the others are triple the size of the little one. Parents!

I race inside and call the DNR lady back.

"Sounds like a fledgling crow, fallen from his nest," she says. "Can you get him back in?"

“The tree he fell out of is at least sixty feet high. I don't even think I could reach any branches with a ladder."

"Well, his parents know where he is. You should keep an eye on him and make sure they feed him."

For the next three and a half hours, I watch from my book room. The big crows circle and fuss but don't land, and at 7:30 I call the DNR lady again. It's Saturday evening; this must be her home number. She sounds annoyed.

"They're not landing. What should I do?"

"Put him back in the yard under his tree," she says. "He's got to eat."

"But that tree is right near the street. He'll get hit by a car if he wanders." She's quiet for a minute.

"You'll have to feed him, then."

"I gave him some bread. Water, too."

"Worms would be better," she says.

So I go into the backyard with a cereal bowl, a butter knife, and a spoon. Fifteen minutes later, I have one thin worm and three blisters. I find a coffee can and twenty minutes later, I have two big holes in the clay yard, and one more skinny worm.

Little Crow has watched all of this intently. I sit on the grass in front of him, surprised that I thought he was grown. He's clearly just a little guy—the feathers haven't even come in yet on his head; from the neck up he's all black fluff. Even so, he's got an impressive beak, sharp and about an inch and a half long, as black as his feathers and still partly covered with fuzz, like a yearling deer's velvet antlers. He watches me with interest. I lift a worm, mildly grossed out, and dangle it over his head.

"Open!" I say hopefully. He does not open.

"Open, birdie!" He looks at me closely, tilting his head. His parents start their racket again. The little bird twists 180 degrees to watch them. He's not afraid of me, but I'm a little nervous about his parents. After much cajoling, he opens his beak and I drop the worm in. He closes his beak, chops the worm in two, and spits both halves onto the grass. The oozing worm twists there. I sigh and grab a piece.

"Open!"

I don't think he's actually gotten a whole worm yet. He's probably still at the regurgitation stage. Twenty minutes later, I've managed to get a couple of pieces of worm in. One or two are lost in the grass, and I move around the yard making new holes, turning up blocks of wood in the landscaping, missing the big crawlers; they suck themselves into the earth—sloop—at the first hint of light. They're fast as hell. I chase the first two or three with the spoon. Eventually I curse and jab the dirt violently with the butter knife where they disappear.

Little Crow waddles behind me as I hunt. It's hard not to pet him, but birds have lice, and mites, and their lice have mites, and I'm just about doing all I can to handle the worm thing, so I settle for talking love at him instead. “Ooohh, you cute little honey.” He watches me with his blue-eyed gaze.

It's a bonding event, this dinner hunt, which I eventually have to abandon because it's getting dark and there have only been three worms and he's still obviously hungry. I go to the drug store for an eyedropper and some baby food. On my way back outside I fill a mug with water. He practically runs to greet me. His parents have a fit. I'm half ducking, thinking Alfred Hitchcock, and sit on the cement apron in front of the garage, with my feet out in front of me, the water and jar of Gerber turkey and vegetables, all I could find, between my knees. The little guy walks right up to me and sits between my ankles.

I hold the dropper full of turkey over his head and, surprise surprise, he opens wide the first try. I squirt it in.

Besides choking a little, he appears to actually find the stuff offensive: he whacks his beak on the cement, swallows convulsively, and rolls his eyes. I'm afraid he'll damage his beak and feel guilty, especially for laughing, then offer him some water, trying to right things, but he's not so trusting of me anymore. He toddles off a little, pecking the driveway. Eventually he sits, watching me sideways. When I approach him, he waddles quickly in the other direction. This hurts a little.

Back into the house. I come back out with a container of blueberry yogurt, the logic behind this selection evident: birds like blueberries. He doesn't want to cooperate with the dropper, but eventually he does and he doesn't mind the yogurt as much as the liquid turkey, but he'll only take two squirts before he meanders off, his head twisted around in that Exorcist way, toward his box.

I am satisfied.

* * *

I spent a week with this Little Crow. His parents never did land, but they circled the house constantly, and I fed him night crawlers from the bait shop. I bought three dozen and put them in a planter with potting soil. They were monstrous. When it was time to eat I chopped them with hedge clippers. We had a pretty efficient meal system going by the time he disappeared.

Little Crow could fly some; he'd take off and land across the street, in someone's driveway, or on a roof, and sit there for a few hours. I'd hunt him down and feed him four times a day.

One morning, when I went outside with my hedge clippers, he was nowhere to be seen. It occurred to me, as I walked around the block, up and down our street, all over the neighborhood, that I'd been trying to raise a wild bird.

I can't call him, can I? Do birds have ears? Have I spoken to him enough? Could he even know my voice? I'll bet he does. I've been talking to him constantly. Of course birds have ears. They sing, don't they?

I don't see him anywhere. I sneak into everyone's yards. Eventually I give up, not wanting to be far from the house if he should find his way back. He's going to be hungry. He cries and cries when it's time to eat, as if he gets almost nothing. He's a little pig. I feed him plenty.

By early afternoon, he's about to miss his third meal. He must be starving; now I can't eat. Whenever I open my door his parents swoop down, shrieking. I pace the street, hoping they'll lead me to him. My neighbors still think I'm a lunatic.

Evening. Four missed meals. I sit on the porch, worrying. I stir his worms.

Three days later I find him in the street. I scoop him up and take him home. I bury him in the yard in one of the holes I dug for his dinner.

In the middle of the night less than a week later, I'm sitting on the porch. The street is quiet—no ghosts, no falling birds, no strolling anything. Something sticking out of the grass catches my eye. I investigate.

Crow feather.

I keep it.

* * *

Little Crow's little brother was born this year.

He caws and caws, insistent; his voice is small, but he means it. He learned to fly quickly. Pumpkin and I watched the lesson from our porch.

Littler Crow began by hopping clumsily, branch to branch. It was just the three of them at first, him and his parents; they all cawed excitedly as he jumped up one, down one, up one. Soon he gained confidence and moved unexpectedly to the crown of the tree. His parents followed, loudly agitated; he flew to the next tree, expertly, wings wide, parachuting as he landed. They shrieked, right behind him the whole time. If he were to fall, I wonder what they'd do.

He returned to the first tree and dancingly hopped all over it. The parents, mad, followed. The whole tree rustled. Their noise drew other crows to the trees surrounding: three, four, six, eight, cawing to each other, each voice a bit different, each call distinct. Littler Crow's voice was drowned out. I could see him in profile, beak wide. He hopped and flapped, hopped and flapped. The cacophony was alarming. Down the block a man came onto the sidewalk and stood looking our way.

After about forty minutes, Littler Crow stopped in his original tree. I imagined he must be tired. His parents landed, one on each side, upon his branch, and the three of them stood very close together. They touched each other's wings with their beaks. The visiting crows moved off, tree by tree, up both sides of the block, cawing.

Littler Crow was quiet and still. The three of them stood there, in perfect view from our porch.

I watched them for a long time.